The present disclosure relates to motion picture film scanning equipment. Specifically, the present disclosure relates to systems, apparatus, and methods for digitally scanning motion picture film.
In the past, motion pictures were shot and projected using photographic film such as 8 mm, 16 mm, 35 mm and other film stock. Because of cost savings and convenience, digital projection systems are replacing film projection equipment and motion pictures are often being digitally shot and stored as opposed to being shot with film. Motion pictures shot using film are generally edited digitally. Older and classic motion picture films are being archived and re-mastered digitally. All of these trends require that the images on film be transferred to digital media.
Transferring film footage into digital media requires that the film be scanned or digitized. The film images can be directly scanned into digital data stream. The scanned images are stored on computer readable medium such as a hard drive or flash memory in file formats such as TIFF, DPX, and QuickTime ProRes. This is in contrast to an older process known as telecine where film images were transferred in real-time into a video signal, which would typically be attached to a video tape recorder.
Splicing is the process of joining two pieces of film together. Splices are generally made when repairing damaged or broken film, or when editing sections of film together. A single 1000 ft. (304.8 m) reel of older or classic film may contain over a hundred splices. A two-hour full-length classic motion picture would require eleven 1000 ft. (304.8 m) reels and therefore, may include well over a thousand splices.
Film splices can be made using adhesive tape, or using a liquid adhesive, that bond the two ends of the film together. As time passes, the adhesive holding the splice together weakens and the film becomes brittle. It is common for old film splices or even non-spliced, but damaged film sections, to cause the film to break during the scanning process.
Film defects, such as bad splices, or partial tears, cause the motion picture film scanning process to be inefficient and labor-intensive. Before scanning begins, the film may be put through a pre-inspection and editing/repair process, to circumvent potential problems. Nonetheless, problems can occur. Each time the film breaks during scanning, the scanning station operator unloads the film reel from the scanner. The scan station operator sends the reel of film to the repair/editing station or optionally first back to the pre-inspection station. After the splice or break is repaired, the film reel is sent back to the scan station operator. The scan station operator typically re-scans the entire reel from the beginning in order to generate a single uninterrupted digital output stream. By this method, each time a splice fails or the film breaks, the reel would have to be rescanned from the beginning. For example, if there were five splice failures, or five breaks, than the reel would end up being rescanned from the beginning five times.
Instead of scanning the entire scan sequence from the beginning each time the film breaks, the scan operator can save the scan file created before the break, and scan the material after each break into separate scan files. The scan operator can then transfer all the files to a digital video editing station where the files can later be manually edited together. While this process is less time consuming than scanning from the beginning, it requires a person skilled in digital video editing software to carefully stich together the separate pieces while not duplicating or omitting any frames in the area of the stitching and has the potential to be time consuming, labor intensive, and inconvenient.